Posted
by
Zonk
on Wednesday November 21, 2007 @04:20PM
from the because-they-need-another-excuse-to-buy dept.

The little heard-of television adapter for the DS went on sale in Japan yesterday, retailing for ¥6,800 ($62.70). "The design is different from the prototype shown in 2004, as it features a simple aerial cartridge which plugs in the back of the handheld, and no base unit. The top screen is used for the TV picture, while the bottom screen can be used to do things such as change channels and take notes." The company has no current plans to bring the TV adapter to the US, or anywhere else.

Actually, your emoticon fits what you would have to do to reduce static if it read analog over the air signals. \o\ (lean left) for NBC,/o/ (lean right) for FOX, and \o/ (praise Jebus) for my local Christian broadcast channel.

I had the tv tuner for Game Gear and your experience sounds very familiar. It was a cute toy, but ended up being practically useless. I see no reason why the tuner for DS, or the tuners in certain recent cell phones, would be any different.

I don't see why a third party can't bring this.... or maybe a grey market version. Off to ebay!

It goes in the back, so that makes it a Slot 1 cartridge. That means an unauthorised third-party device will need to use the same kind of trickery that Slot 1 flashcarts use - either exploiting some "defects" in the DS's bios, a'la Passme devices, or mimicking an actual DS cartridge through using copyrighted Nintendo boot codes. Nintendo are going to love that, and they're currently coming down on a number of fl

That means an unauthorised third-party device will need to use the same kind of trickery that Slot 1 flashcarts use - either exploiting some "defects" in the DS's bios, a'la Passme devices, or mimicking an actual DS cartridge through using copyrighted Nintendo boot codes.

At least in the United States, the use of copyrighted Nintendo boot codes would be fair. Sega v. Accolade. This remains true even after the copyright amendments of 1998. Chamberlain v. Skylink and Lexmark v. Static Control.

Where are you going to put the mapping data? I guess it could have a good sized flash chip built in, but then it still needs PC connectivity to get updates and load regional data. Then there's the extra PC (and hopefully Mac too) software you need to maintain to keep the thing updated. It could be done, but there's more to it than gluing an antenna to a DS.

It would be a great excuse to carry my DS everywhere, but there are already good, portable GPS units with touch screens, if that's what you're after.

You can get flash card adapters for the DS. I have one that takes MicroSD cards and a matching 2 Gig card. If you don't mind a little bulk, CF adapters are available and they must be up to 16 Gig by now.

I just got back from Japan, and this attachment makes perfect sense there. Everyone travels by train, sometimes commuting 30 min to an hour. I saw a lot of Nintendo DS's being played on the trains by bored travellers, as well as a lot of people texting and watching video on their cell phones. A lot of cell phones I saw there actually have screens that rotate sideways to widescreen displays (the new phones there are huge) and have TV antennae built in for people to watch TV while they are travelling.
It sort of makes sense that someone would tap into that for the DS crowd. Although, as someone else pointed out, it is a small screen. Their cell phone display would probably be larger.

I have one of those rotating screen phones, au's W52CA. The TV quality is actually quite good and like most phones like it, it came with headphones so it is quite possible to watch TV on it.

As for the DS, I only see kids playing DS (though when some of my middle school students found out I had one they busted their DSes out and begged me to trade Pokemon) in public, but obviously someone wants these TV tuner because they've sold like veritable hotcakes.